🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.